Ministries and other national bodies

The Council of Ministers has ordered a temporary suspension to permits for clearing and transporting timber from the reservoir area of the Lower Sesan II Dam until after the upcoming elections in July, with a government official yesterday saying illegal logging was “out of control”, ...

The Labour Ministry has created a technical working group to study and investigate what causes fainting in an attempt to reduce episodes of fainting at factories nationwide. Labour Minister Ith Samheng, who is also chairman of the National Committee for Health and Work Safety, said the ...

A representative with Duong Sruoch Group in Preah Vihear yesterday denied allegations that that the company had been illegally clearing forest outside the boundaries of social land concessions it had been licensed to log. Duong Sruoch Group was specifically named in a directive issued Monday by ...

Cambodia exported about $3 billion worth of goods to the EU in the first nine months of last year, according to Ouch Borith, a secretary of state at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Borith’s remarks came at the ministry’s annual meeting and were in response to a ...

A task force established a month ago to address problems stemming from an influx of Chinese investment to Sihanoukville has not received a single report of illegal businesses or taken any enforcement action, with one official maintaining it was impossible to take “serious” action for ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen bragged yesterday about importing “thousands or tens of thousands” of tonnes of weaponry overnight in the run-up to a major joint military exercise with China. “Samdech Tea Banh, the minister of defence, he does not transport flowers,” the premier said to an ...

The German embassy in Cambodia is cooperating with the government to assist in rural development.According to a press release from the German embassy issued yesterday, more than 2,500 kilometres of roads, 88 bridges, 48 schools and 11 markets have been built across the country with ...

The government will begin to pay out of pocket for severance wages for labourers at abruptly shuttered factories whose owners have fled, effectively enacting a pro-worker policy without further burdening private businesses – albeit at the risk of discouraging good corporate citizenship, experts say. ...

The White House is cutting aid to several assistance programs in Cambodia due to “recent setbacks to democracy”, it announced late Tuesday. Some programs supporting Cambodia’s Tax Department, military and local government will be cut or reduced “to ensure that American taxpayer funds are not being ...

A live-fire exercise along the Cambodian-Lao border yesterday in Stung Treng province’s Siem Pang district, where a conflict with Laos arose last year, was not to demonstrate power or threaten any neighbouring countries, according to the Ministry of National Defence.​ ...

The Council of Ministers has ordered licences granted to private companies to log and collect timber from social land concessions (SLC) and state-owned land revoked, following years of allegations that some companies were exploiting the permits to carry out illegal logging. The council on Monday released ...

The government yesterday maintained it was opening a path to citizenship for roughly 70,000 ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia, though many have lived here for generations, and advocates say a current drive to revoke “irregular” government documents is effectively rendering many stateless. ...

Officials appeared to walk back a promise to issue larger-than-average electricity price reductions ahead of July’s elections, instead following a previously announced plan to make small reductions in costs. Ty Norin, chairman of the Electricity Authority of Cambodia (EAC), released a statement earlier this month announcing ...

The Environment Ministry has requested the National Defence Ministry to form a joint working group over the use of land in natural protected areas to cut down on land disputes and instances of illegal logging. Defence Ministry spokesman General Chhum Sucheat said both parties agreed last ...

The Ministry of Interior is giving 30 hectares of land to a well-connected development company in exchange for a smaller piece of land on the southern outskirts of Phnom Penh. The land swap, announced in a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on January 18, ...

On the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Koh Kong provincial authorities on Friday inspected a section of protected mangrove forest that in December was discovered to have been filled in with sand and illegally sold, with the consent of local authorities, to tycoon Chea ...

The government released a summary of the country’s industrial sector over the past five years, showing a marked increase in growth across a wide variety of indicators. The report, released by the Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts (MIH) last week, lacks specific data but shows a ...

Media outlets in Cambodia have came under increasing threat over the past year, according to a new report by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), though the Ministry of Information, responding to a similar recent report, has insisted freedom of expression and the press is ...

Health Ministry officials said the number of malaria cases in 2017 increased nearly 100 percent if compared to the previous year during a meeting to set a strategy to reduce the rate in 2018. The National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control issued an official ...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reaffirmed his commitment to the country and the upcoming national election as Kem Sokha’s daughter has taken to social media to demand an explanation as to why Japan is supporting an “artificial” election. Last week Japan’s ambassador to Cambodia, Hidehisa ...

The Interior Ministry has decided to allow land rights NGO Equitable Cambodia to operate in Cambodia after suspending its activities in September. The announcement was made after a meeting between Interior Minister Sar Kheng and EU ambassador George Edgar on Friday. ...

Forty concrete posts have been placed at key locations along the boundary of Phnom Tbeng Natural Heritage Park in Preah Vihear province, paving the way for rangers to patrol the park and enforce forestry and wildlife protection laws. The work was conducted by officials from the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered the Koh Kong provincial governor to clarify reports that state mangrove forests in the province have been grabbed and filled with sand to create land for development. Speaking during the closing ceremony for an annual conference on decentralisation, Mr Hun ...

Environment Minster Say Sam Al and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Commander Pol Saroeun announced three new points of cooperation following a meeting earlier this week, Saroeun announced on his official Facebook page. ...